Page 33 of Yours to Keep

“Why?” He shrugged, carefully hanging his jacket over a chair. “You see naked people all day, every day. This is no different. I’m just a guy putting on a gown.”

When he reached for the buttons of his shirt, I averted my gaze and stared—very professionally—at the ceiling. My pulse started doing unholy things, my entire body suddenly buzzing with awareness of what was happening right now. It didn’t help that, try as I might, I couldn’t stop sneaking glances.

Sullivan wasn’t making a show of getting undressed. There was nothing performative about it at all, actually, but the casual confidence made it worse. I saw his broad shoulders under his shirt, the lean muscle in his arms when the buttons were all undone and he slipped the garment off. Then the undershirt went next and I nearly moaned out loud.

In my periphery, I could see it all. The stacked abs that were defined enough to be noticeable but not overly carved. That sexy line at his hips. The rippling in his arms when he moved. Oh, God. The rippling.

He had the kind of body that was built by genetics and discipline, not mirrors. Just breathe, Bree. Breathe, don’t stare.

Since I refused to let him see how flustered this was making me, I just refocused my gaze on the ceiling. Until his pants came off, at which point, the very best I could do was to not stare actively, but rather going for an expression of professional disinterest as I flicked my eyes over him.

Thank God, he kept his underwear on, but the thin fabric left little to the imagination and he was packing some serious heat down there. In an effort not to gawk, I focused on the paper gown he’d set down on the table like it was a flotation device and I was drowning.

“Are you going to help me?” he asked, gesturing toward the gown.

I nodded and stepped closer, swallowing in a futile attempt to make moisture return to my mouth. “Right. Sure.”

With each step I took, the space between us shrank until I could smell him—his scent clean, like spice and citrus, expensive but restrained. It was heavenly. Divine.

Focus, Bree.

Finally managing to convince my hands to move, I picked up the gown and lifted it, slipping the awful paper over his shoulders, but as I did it, my fingers brushed warm skin and I almost shivered. Stop it, you’re being ridiculous.

It didn’t matter how many people I did this for every day, though. How many times in the past I’d completed these very motions. The muscle memory helped me get the gown on him, but this wasn’t the same.

It was very, very different. I was hyper aware of how close he was, that delicious scent of him, and that he was wearing very little clothes, and the only thing I could think was, If I start drooling, at least the paper will soak it up.

14

SULLIVAN

The second the paper gown touched my skin, I knew I’d been a fool. I didn’t even make it a full second before my brain started screaming.

Contrary to the description on the supplier website, the paper wasn’t soft or neutral. It was like rubbing against fiberglass, stiff, scratchy, and wrong in a way that immediately set my teeth on edge.

Every nerve in my body lit up in protest, and my first, strongest instinct was to shred the thing off and pretend this had never happened, but I was stubborn. What was worse was that I’d agreed to this in front of her.

Thankfully, I still had my go-to for when I was uncomfortable, which was to pretend like it was no big deal. Like it didn’t bother me. In this case, like my skin wasn’t already turning hypersensitive beneath the thin paper and I wasn’t actively fighting the urge to claw at my own torso.

I rolled my shoulders, trying to be casual about it, but the gown rasped against me, loud and unforgiving. Goddamn.

Behind me, Bree cleared her throat. I could feel her there, too close, the faint scent of antiseptic soap and something warmer radiating from her making it hard to focus on anything else. Frankly, on that front, it was probably a good thing this gown was so fucking awful, because without it against my skin, things would’ve been getting pretty hard with that scent of her on every inhale.

“This is fine,” I said lightly, as if I wasn’t already regretting every decision that had led me to this moment. “It’s really not so bad.”

Finally, when I’d managed to school my expression—and get my body under control—enough to turn, I expected to find her smirking. Instead, her cheeks were pink, but she wasn’t flushed like she was embarrassed. It was more like she was trying very hard not to be—or like maybe this didn’t have anything to do with embarrassment at all.

Her gaze flicked to my chest, then away. Then back again, the glances quick and involuntary, like she physically couldn’t help herself.

Well. This is… distracting.

Since I wasn’t wearing enough to let myself indulge that particular distraction, however, I straightened, ignoring the way the paper pulled and scraped, and focused on her face instead. Her mouth was set in a determined line. That spark in her eyes that had gotten her into my office in the first place.

She looked fired up, smug, and flustered all at once, and it did absolutely nothing to help the situation developing beneath this gown of agony, but I could not let her see that. It would be crossing a line—and one I’d already come dangerously close to just by letting her put the damn thing on me.

“How does it feel?” she asked, and unless I was imagining things, her voice was just a little huskier than usual. “Do you want to try to move in it? Sit?”

Immediately, I took her suggestion. Even if it was mostly to give myself an excuse to put some much-needed distance between us. I moved toward the chair by the table and sat, aiming for casual and in control, but the second the paper bunched beneath me, I was back on my feet.